Anyway, here’s my thought as I head through town to buy some groceries to cook up a great meal at home tonight — I’ll admit I have no idea who’s more scared right now, the bulls or the bears. Apple didn’t really participate today, Google didn’t have oomph, FIO faded during the day and the financials like GS, JPM and BAC were steadily on fire all day upon the news that they’re getting a new welfare program to “help them out of this crisis“.

A Large Middle Class Isn’t Necessarily Normal – My old friend and mentor, David Merkel, with a very controversial take on what’s a “normal” distribution of wealth in a society. I disagree with him trying to tie his conclusion to the what the people are fighting at Occupy Wall Street, but he’s written a very challenging take on a lot of important societal and economic issues and it’s key to investment success to challenge your own assumptions.

Here are the captions that were appearing on CNBC while I had it on mute like usual and I happened to look up and see one of the biggie analysts at Goldman who personally helped destroy that once proudly profitable enterprise and turned it into a welfare looting machine in the last decade or so (my comments are in parentheses):

But while the mainstream media and the elites it covers try to convince themselves that there’s been some sort of “progress” on figuring out who’s grandchildren will be paying the most for today’s free money, I still think that they’ve already passed the point of no return for finding a multi-trillion dollar gimmick. A month or two ago, the markets and the prices for the bailouts were much more friendly (though to be clear, there’s NEVER a good reason or good time to bailout anybody or any company or any system).

Q: What are your thoughts on the run up of oil? Do you think it will continue or is it time for a correction? A: I sorta think the oil run up “looks” or “feels” or whatever you want to call it — it looks like it has legs. I’d love to try to catch a top in oil again but I’m leery it’s gonna be trickier than most oil traders and experts think. That is, oil’s about to make a lot of people look foolish all of the time — like Mr. Market is famous for, really, making the most amount of people look stupid the most amount of the time it can. Love to hate that guy, Mr. Market, don’t we?

Don’t lose your ability to recognize capitalism’s face when you see it. It looks to be returning and soon. And you know the playbook ahead of time — and that playbook is basically a perfect “Flip It” of what the mainstream media and the markets are looking at.

Cody back in real-time here. Banks earnings as a percentage of GDP are still even elevated from those insanely elevated levels of the last decade, courtesy of the ongoing bailouts and zero interest rate and QE policies from your Republican/Democrat Regime in power and the Fed the enable. And those levels are so damaging to our economy, as you can see before your eyes. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, Occupy Wall Street isn’t anti-Wall-Street, it’s anti-welfare-for-Wall-Street.

Investor sentiment isn’t contrarian – Really interesting market psychology and sentiment analysis from my old friend Jordan Kahn. Today, he writes a great Flip-It, “I think the important thing that many investors miss about monitoring investor sentiment is that it isn’t ALWAYS a contrarian indicator. I like to say that investor sentiment is usually directionally correct during a market trend, but very wrong at market turning points.”

Q: Cody, love the service and I’m a big fan. One thing I am surprised to hear you talk about is using “house money” as a reason for holding onto AKAM. I would peg you for a “there is no such thing as house money, just ‘my money.’” How do you draw the line between investments using winnings and money coming from elsewhere? A: Yes, you are right! I shouldn’t have written that and I cringed when I read what you wrote, because I’ve argued that very thing many times. Thank you for pointing out the fact that all money in my portfolio is MY money and none of it is anybody else’s and thinking otherwise is terrible logic.

Some interesting factoids and analysis on Google – “Does anyone realize that GOOG is actually lower than where it was in October of 2008 when the financial madness had already started with Lehman’s bankruptcy. GOOG has more than doubled its revenues and earnings since that time. Just saying.”

About The Cody Word

Cody Willard writes the Revolution Investing investment newsletter for MarketWatch and posts the trades from his personal account at TradingWithCody.com He is the founder of WallStreetAll-Stars.com and the principal of CL Willard Capital. Cody serves as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is on the University of New Mexico Alumni Board. He was an anchor on the Fox Business Network, where he was the co-host of the long-time #1-rated show on the network, Fox Business Happy Hour. Cody, a former hedge fund manager, and his stock picks and economic outlooks have been featured on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ABC’s 20/20, CBS Evening News, CNBC’s SquawkBox, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, as well as in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other outlets.